Remembering Tomy Rascal Robots
As a young child I became fascinated with robots. Being a kid in the 70s and 80s I was seeing robots every time I watched TV and movies; from seeing old images of the “false Maria” in the silent classic ‘Metropolis’, Robbie the Robot from ‘Forbidden Planet’, B-9 on Lost in Space, Cylons on ‘Battlestar Galactica’, Twiki on ‘Buck Rogers’, and even the robot Rocky gave Paulie in ‘Rocky IV’! And then of course, you had the granddaddy of them all – ‘Star Wars’! In fact, after my Dad took me to see Star Wars at the theater, we headed to the long gone Service Merchandise store where he bought me R2-D2 and Chewbacca! I still have them. For the next several years those Kenner made Star Wars action figures were the main focus of my playtime, and robots and droids were a major part of it. But another kind of robot actually infiltrated into “my” world of Star Wars funs that wasn’t made by Kenner at all. It was the Tomy Rascal Robot - A cheap, tiny wind up toy that frankly looked and sounded awesome, and was the perfect size to hang out with those characters from “far, far away.”
Tomy is a Japanese toy company founded in the 1920s and by the time I came around in the 1970s my hands were no stranger to their fantastic and fun toys! I had a Tutor Typewriter, the Digital Derby Auto Raceway, various handheld water and mechanical operated games, their laptop sized pinball machine, and the amazing digital Tomytronic 3D handheld games like ‘Tank Attack’ and ‘Thundering Turbo’! Somewhere along the way in 1977 or 1978 I got my first little Tomy RASAL robot as well. Kind of looking like a squashed down Robbie the Robot these little dome headed ‘bots measured in at 2 ¾ inches tall, and great looking colors like clear blue or red dome heads, beautiful chrome or gold bodies, and either black, red, or orange arms and legs. By cranking the little white knurled knob protruding from one side you could wind them up and off they would walk… making a “reeear, reear, reear, reear” noise until the spring tension wore down and they stopped in their tracks! They cost around one dollar to buy and fit in your hand! And the best thing is they were about the size of my Kenner R2-D2 action figure, so R2 and R5-D4 had a new friend!
Over those early years I had a few of them, but eventually the little Rascal Robots would quit walking as little me would over wind and break them. They got discarded and thrown away. I never forgot them, and eventually in the early 2000s I started seeing them pop up on eBay! Heck, why not buy them again? So a few Rascals have adorned my office since then as a throwback as a simple toy from a more simple time! When my son was a very young boy I introduced him to them as well, and we would have “robot battles” as we would wind them up and see whose ‘bot would knock the other one down first! In 2020, as my family and I moved into a new house that we had built one of the first things I did in my office was break in my art supplies and draw a Rascal Robot with Micron and Copic markers. You can see that drawing below.
Reminiscing back there were so many great toys and gadgets Tomy brought to my childhood, and because of the strange name (I thought it was “Tommy” when I was little) I knew WHO they were back then and I knew they made great stuff. Here I am almost 50 years later writing about a plastic wind up toy that I remember so fondly! So thank you, Tomy!